First Blood [Mass Market Paperback]

David Morrell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 2000

First came the man: a young wanderer in a fatigue coat and long hair. Then came the legend, as John Rambo sprang from the pages of FIRST BLOOD to take his place in the American cultural landscape. This remarkable novel pits a young Vietnam veteran against a small-town cop who doesn't know whom he's dealing with -- or how far Rambo will take him into a life-and-death struggle through the woods, hills, and caves of rural Kentucky.

Millions saw the Rambo movies, but those who haven't read the book that started it all are in for a surprise -- a critically acclaimed story of character, action, and compassion.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"I've been a Morrell fan for years -- and now more than ever".

-- Dean Koontz on Double Image --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

About the Author

My father was killed during World War II, shortly after I was born in 1943. My mother had difficulty raising me and at the same time holding a job, so she put me in an orphanage and later in a series of boarding homes. I grew up unsure of who I was, desperately in need of a father figure. Books and movies were my escape. Eventually I decided to be a writer and sought help from two men who became metaphorical fathers to me: Stirling Silliphant, the head writer for the classic TV series "Route 66" about two young men in a Corvette who travel America in search of themselves, and Philip Klass (whose pen name is William Tenn), a novelist who taught at the Pennsylvania State University where I went to graduate school from 1966 to 1970. The result of their influence is my 1972 novel, First Blood, which introduced Rambo. The search for a father is prominent in that book, as it is in later ones, most notably The Brotherhood of the Rose (1984), a thriller about orphans and spies. During this period, I was a professor of American literature at the University of Iowa. With two professions, I worked seven days a week until exhaustion forced me to make a painful choice and resign from the university in 1986. One year later, my fifteen-year-old son, Matthew, died from bone cancer, and thereafter my fiction tended to depict the search for a son, particularly in Fireflies (1988) and Desperate Measures (1994). To make a new start, my wife and I moved to the mountains and mystical light of Santa Fe, New Mexico, where my work changed yet again, exploring the passionate relationships between men and women, highlighting them against a background of action as in the newest, Burnt Sienna. To give his stories a realistic edge, he has been trained in wilderness survival, hostage negotiation, executive protection, antiterrorist driving, assuming identities, electronic surveillance, and weapons. A former professor of American literature at the University of Iowa, Morrell now lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing (February 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0446364401
• ISBN-13: 978-0446364409
• Product Dimensions: 4.2 x 0.8 x 6.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (119 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #58,477 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

42 of 43 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars First Blood better than any movie May 6, 2002

By Greg

Format:Mass Market Paperback

Morrell became famous with this great novel. This book is nothing like the movies. In the movies Rambo is the clear cut hero while Will Teasle is the "Red Neck Sherriff" out to get someone who looks different. In the book there is not clear cut "good guy" or "bad guy." Both Rambo and Teasle are responsible for what happends. Both had a chance to let it go but don't. Rambo is going through a psychological hell in his mind when trying not to kill again but being forced to in his mind. Teasle who loses several close people in his life and is in the middle of a personal crisis at home. Both were heroes in different wars. Teasle was a hero in the Korean War while Rambo got the medal of honor for his work in Vietnam. This is a great psychological read. Both men think they are right and will not stop until the other is not breathing. Which one will win? Who is right and who is wrong? Also if you buy the book to read for the 1st time do NOT read the introduction if you don't want the ending spoiled.

52 of 58 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars First Blood, or how to Destroy a Small Town July 2, 2005

By Mr D.

Format:Mass Market Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

You are a war hero, a Congressional Medal of Honor winner, finally back stateside and your welcome home has been dubious at best. Your mind is jumbled up and you don't know what you want to do so you start traveling around the country. You hitchhike or ride the bus when you can and walk otherwise. You camp out in the woods and live off the land as you are trained to do.

You are a law abiding citizen. You love your country, you fought for your country, and you've KILLED for your country. You are a trained killing machine, a weapon of mass destruction, sprung tight and ready to go off with provocation and provoke you they do. In town after town you have been rousted, not because of anything you've done but because of your scruffy appearance.

John Rambo is passing through Madison, Kentucky and decides to get a hamburger but as usual it's not that simple. Chief of Police, Wilfred Teasle has other ideas. He doesn't want any riffraff in his town so he picks the kid up and drives him to the edge of town, He wasn't particularly nasty about it, in fact he tried to be pleasant, determined but pleasant, but he wasn't so pleasant later when he found the kid in the local diner. He told the waitress to put the kid's order in a bag and hustled him back out of town. By now Teasle was very annoyed, so he went and parked on a side street and kept watch to make sure the kid did not walk back into town.

For his part the kid (Rambo) had reached his limit. If someone was going to push him, he was going to push back. He was determined to go back and confront the Chief and make him back down but of course Teasle had other ideas. He arrested the kid, took him to jail, hosed him down and started to give him a haircut and a shave.

Now, Rambo was an escaped POW. He was a prisoner of the North Vietnamese and was tortured relentlessly before escaping, so when the deputies tried to shave him with a straight razor, he flipped out and grabbed the razor and slashed a deputy that reached for his gun.

Thus began an odyssey of death and mayhem in the nearby mountains and eventually destroyed a good part of Madison.

CONCLUSION

Most of you are probably aware that a movie was made from this book. Because of this I need to make comparisons to the movie.

The Book

This was David Morrell's first book and for a first book it showed phenomenal presence. The book was a pleasure to read. Morrell used easy to understand language and the novel moved right along smoothly. It contains cover to cover action and there's never a dull moment, literally the story seemed to jump out at you.

The macho macho plot seems to revolve around saving some perceived face. Teasle thinks if he backs down he would be setting a precedent and his little town would soon be inundated with drugs and undesirables, a ridiculous notion. On the other hand Rambo probably could have avoided confrontation if he'd have been forthcoming about his service, status and his medal. Instead he was close lipped and brought the confrontation to a head. At first you seem to pull for Rambo as being unjustly persecuted but ultimately he proves to be an out of control trained killer who is in a preservation mode - exactly as he was trained.

The Movie

In short the book was excellent but it was much more violent than the movie, which I'd seen first, so I felt it was much more violent than it needed to be. For example in the movie only one deputy gets killed almost accidentally and the viewer felt he deserved it.

In the book, Rambo was determined to kill everyone who came after him including the bloodhounds and he was good at his job. In the movie Rambo was not quite as psychotic and because of this you empathized with him as the underdog. I guess I feel that the book was great but honestly, I enjoyed the movie more.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Expecting More November 18, 2008

By J. Stoner VINE™ VOICE

Format:Mass Market Paperback

I have read several of Morrell's books before and I must say, he is a mixed bag author. I either absolutely love his books ("Fraternity of the Stone," and "Brotherhood of the Rose", or I absolutely abhor them ("Scavenger," for one). "First Blood" is the first book I've read by Morrell that I found somewhere in the middle. I didn't despise reading it, and I enjoyed it for the most part, but it wasn't the exceptional quality I had come to expect out of Rambo (or John Rambo, to which it later evolves).

Unfortunately, I am just now reading this book, some thirty plus years after it originally debuted. I think, being a child born somewhere between Generation X and the Mellinial Generation, I was raised already knowing how incredible Rambo was and always expected high octane, high caliber, and emotionally charged stories.

I really liked Rambo, the character, at the beginning of the story. I was hoping for some more development and background on him, though. Maybe some more detailed flashbacks, more information from his superior officer, maybe... something! This story was a non stop chase throughout the Kentucky wilderness, of which I grew as fatigued in reading about Rambo and Teasle as those characters did chasing each other.

You can tell this is a first book by an author. It is hard to describe, but there just isn't the polish that I had come to appreciate of his later works (as expected) like "Brotherhood of the Rose," and "Fraternity of the Stone."

This book is highly recommended - no, required reading - for any Rambo or Morrell fans. Knowing the origin (of both) is like revisiting an old friend: Timeless.

J.Stoner